Introducing The Samsung Galaxy SIII (GT-i9300)

Samsung has finally come out with its much-awaited flagship phone, the Samsung Galaxy SIII.

Riding on the success of the ‘20-million-device-sales’ Galaxy SII, Samsung is expecting sales of the S3 to surpass that of the S2. As expected, the device has a slew of improvements over the S2, in terms of size, processing power and an improved display resolution – not to mention various new features implemented by Samsung to make the user experience more pleasurable and intuitive. It is being billed as the official smartphone of the London 2012 Olympics.

The phone weighs at 133g and measures 8.6mm at its thickest. The device is rounded off at the corners, similar to the Galaxy Nexus. The real show-stealer is the 1.4 GHz Exynos 4 Quad processor – with 1 GB RAM to keep the phone running as smooth as ever. The further addition of a Mali 400MP GPU, which is about 60% faster than the GPU on the S2, ensures that the device remains as sleek as possible.

The device sports a 4.8” HD Super AMOLED display, with a pixel count of 1280x720. Very obviously – the device runs Android 4.0, or Ice Cream Sandwich as it is known. It has been skinned with Touchwiz 4.0, as can be seen in all Samsung phones. It is available in 16, 32 and 64 GB versions.

Design, Display and Interface

Samsung says the device is ‘inspired by nature – it sees, listens, responds, and allows you to share the greatest moments’. For such a catchy statement, it is clearly visible every time you look at the phone, as it is available in choices of ‘Marble White’ and ‘Pebble Blue’. Sized at 136.6 x 70.6 x 8.6 mm, the design is more in line with the first device, Galaxy S rather than the Galaxy S2. Rounded edges, minimum bezel and a beautiful screen – the S3 still features a physical home button, compared to the capacitive keys found on the Galaxy Nexus.

As you may have noticed, the ‘Plus’ is missing in the Super AMOLED Display. This means that pixilation is still going to visible to the naked eye, as the display is PenTile. However, the HD resolution does a brilliant job of wowing users, with a higher pixel density of 306 ppi and an improved contrast ratio. Gorilla Glass is a standard nowadays and can be seen on the S3 too.

As we mentioned earlier, the Touchwiz 4.0 interface may prove to be a slight deterrent for Android purists, as it deters from the stock Android experience. However, Samsung has reworked the Touchwiz interface to integrate its ‘inspired by nature’ theme. The sounds of water drops and the water ripples on the screen make the user experience very pleasing. The dock at the bottom also holds five items now.

Camera

Samsung has not been known for going overboard with a high megapixel count in its camera or sporting high end optics like the Carl Zeiss lens found on Nokia devices. The S3 has a standard 8MP rear camera and a 1.9MP front camera; the former capable of full HD video recording, while the latter can do 720p video. Samsung has focused on photography sharing features, making connectivity and social enhancements easily available to users.

Accessories and features

Every smartphone can benefit from having a variety of accessories. With the S3, one can expect a flip cover, a battery charging stand, spare battery, a car dock and an HDMI adapter. However, the real show-stoppers to come out with the S3 are the AllCast wireless dongle (which allows for wireless streaming and presentations), an S-Pebble MP3 player – and hold your breath – a Wireless Charging Kit! This is a revolutionary feature which could change the smartphone game for the time to come.

Another service which will be exclusive to S3 users is a free 50GB Dropbox account. Yes, you read that right. This is in direct competition to HTC Sense 4’s offering of a free 25GB. The free cloud storage has a validity of 2 years, after which the users will have to register and pay to make further use of the 50GB Dropbox space.

Smartphone, really

The Galaxy S3 is equipped with two new features, which are definite improvements on the software side and aim at making the phone more user-friendly. The SmartStay feature makes use of a sensor to detect when the user is looking at the screen – and dims the display when you don’t look at the screen. Another interesting feature is S Voice, which is by far the best competitor to the iPhone Siri. Samsung touts Natural Language Processing as the key to its success. S Beam is another feature, which uses NFC to connect between phones and then uses WiFi Direct to transfer files between them – at speeds of up to 300 Mbps.

All these features would make one cringe at the thought of how much juice would this beast of a device require, but Sammy has kept that well in mind. With a 2100 mAh battery, a longer battery life is guaranteed by providing enough energy to the quad-core processor and the large HD display.

Overall, the device has all the hallmarks of a Samsung best-seller. We are more than confident that Samsung has come out with a device which will prove to be a very worthy successor to the extremely popular Galaxy S2. It is expected to hit international markets by June.